soft material

Dear colleagues:

We would like to invite you to submit an abstract to the topic on 3D Printed Soft Materials at the 2021 ASME IMECE, which is to be held as a virtual conference online from November 1 to November 5, 2021. This year, we are more than happy to invite Dr. Cheng Sun from Northwestern University to give an invited talk.

Please refer to the attached file for the scope of our topic. To submit an abstract, please

We recently characterized a unique material developed from root structure (Mycelium) of mushroom. Mycelium has a filamentous network structure with mechanics largely controlled by filament elasticity and branching, and network density. We report the morphological and mechanical characterization of mycelium. The monotonic mechanical behavior of the mycelium is non-linear both in tension and compression.

I am working on a model in which i have a soft layer of material bonded between to rigid layers of material via cohesive elements following a linear separation-traction law based on a critical fracture energy value I determined from experimental and numerical work. I have the interlayer and cohesive elements as one part with a partitioned face and connected to the two adherends via surface-to-surface ties. I have found that my model runs successfully only if the soft interlayer material is made very stiff.